"Privacy changes." With no opt out.

Google will soon know far more about who you are and what you do on the Web.

The Web giant announced Tuesday that it plans to follow the activities of users across nearly all of its ubiquitous sites, including YouTube, Gmail and its leading search engine.

Google has already been collecting some of this information. But for the first time, it is combining data across its Web sites to stitch together a fuller portrait of users.

Consumers wonÂ’t be able to opt out of the changes, which take effect March 1.

So they'll be sifting through your emails, for example, to "better tailor ads."

Dear Congress: I know none of us have any money for lobbying, but we do have votes. How about a comprehensive privacy statute? And keep Lamar Smith away from it. more...

Posted by: rdbrewer at 07:18 AM | Comments (285)
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I don't understand why he'd confess to any wrongdoing, then.

With the charges against Gingrich megaphoned in the press, Gingrich and Republicans were under intense pressure to end the ordeal. In January, 1997, Gingrich agreed to make a limited confession of wrongdoing in which he pleaded guilty to the previously unknown offense of failing to seek sufficiently detailed advice from a tax lawyer before proceeding with the course. (Gingrich had in fact sought advice from two such lawyers in relation to the course.) Gingrich also admitted that he had provided "inaccurate, incomplete, and unreliable" information to Ethics Committee investigators. That "inaccurate" information was Gingrich's contention that the course was not political -- a claim Cole and the committee did not accept, but the IRS later would.

In return for those admissions, the House reprimanded Gingrich and levied an unprecedented $300,000 fine. The size of the penalty was not so much about the misdeed itself but the fact that the Speaker was involved in it.

Why did Gingrich admit wrongdoing? "The atmosphere at the time was so rancorous, partisan, and personal that everyone, including Newt, was desperately seeking a way to end the whole thing," Gingrich attorney Jan Baran told me in 1999. "He was admitting to whatever he could to get the case over with."

If you read further, you'll see the IRS completely vindicated him (and went further than "we can't prove our case;" they deemed the courses non-political and therefore proper). So I don't understand why Gingrich would then admit to lesser charges. This wasn't a slap on the wrist; this was a $300,000 fine -- "unprecedented" at the time.

Eh.

Meanwhile, Pelosi continues her "I've got a secret about Newt" song and dance.

Gingrich just responded:

"[laughing] Who knows. Who knows. She lives in a San Francisco environment of very strange fantasies and very strange understandings of reality. I have no idea what's in Nancy Pelosi's head. If she knows something, I have a simple challenge: Spit it out."

I'll just go ahead and tell you my speculation/worry: Someone forwarded some unrelated trash to the Democrats, and Gingrich copped falsely to the stated (false) charges to make it all go away. And that's what Pelosi is sitting there grinning like an idiot about.

Posted by: Ace at 06:24 AM | Comments (382)
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Last night the Seals blanked the Pirates and rescued a couple of hostages.

Good job.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:38 AM | Comments (99)
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His Majesty insists upon more gold for the royal coffers. His Majesty did consider being more conciliatory towards opponents of the Royal House, but in the end decided that imperious disdain was the better (and more natural) approach.

How much does His Majesty love you? He loves you so much that he will force the banks to reduce your mortgage payment. Contracts, regulations, rights, and laws? Fiddlesticks! The law is what His Majesty decrees it to be. The world must turn upon His Majesty's imperial whim.

Federalism has been ailing for a long, long time (since the New Deal era at least, if not Reconstruction), but modern States are in a state of deep vassalage to the Federal government. The Founders clearly did not intend for this to be the case...but theyÂ’re just a bunch of dead white guys, so who cares?

I always say that of all the human virtues “humility” is the one economists show the least. And yet it’s the one they need almost above all others. (I also think a good sense of humor -- about themselves and about the world -- is a sine qua non for a good economist.)
more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:31 AM | Comments (142)
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Happy Wednesday.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:00 AM | Comments (131)
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Good ad.

His capacity to repeat himself is scary.

(stage whisper)

It's scary. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:23 PM | Comments (127)
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The drugs.....I think......they're working.</shatner>

Geekery Alert Geekery Alert Whoop Whoop Whoop!

Great Geek Debates: Disney Princesses vs. Hayao Miyazaki Characters

My 5-year-old is just now finishing her education about the difference between real and pretend. Kindergarten seems to help. I cringe when she plays dress-up and pretends to be one of the princesses from the Disney canon. It just creeps me out, like I am watching my child pretend to play Britney or Lindsey or their apprentice Miley, all three of which got their start as child stars with Disney.

Which is why I am grateful my geek instincts led me to be a somewhat early adopter of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli anime. I have been hooked since I first saw Spirited Away, and I have found his work to provide a needed vaccine for my girls against the creeping illness of princess-itis.

And Wecks makes an excellent point in noting that Disney princesses are mostly just archetypes who react to others while Miyazaki's female characters are generally full-fledged persons with their own motivations and desires.

One of the major reasons Disney princesses are so effective as marketing vehicles for children is they distill what it means to be a girl or boy down to a highly simplified formula easy for young children to grasp. Put on a princess dress and I am a girl. Wear a sword, I am a boy. Such stereotyping works really well for a 3- to 6-year-old mind which is just beginning to grapple with gender differences and their consequences. As effective as these stereotypes can be at selling princess products to young girls, these oversimplified notions of gender become problematic when you examine what a princess does.

In contrast, MiyazakiÂ’s female leads offer a far more complex picture of what it means to be a person. They often have agency outside of their relationships to men. In Spirited Away, 10-year-old Chihiro risks her own safety to save her parents. The romance in the plot is tangential and works alongside this mission, rather than being a central focus of her life. This is true for many Miyazaki films, from Castle in the Sky to A Whisper of the Heart, which Miyazaki wrote but did not direct.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:42 PM | Comments (624)
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I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
~ Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley

Thus is the state of our Union.

But I guess Obamandias is going to speechify at 9pm Eastern anyway. Maybe he'll do us a favor and just present a list of his accomplishments. We'd be out at 9:02, including the Congressional Democrats' obligatory standing fellation ... err, ovation.

But watch it we much! You'll have a hard time not finding it on television, and here's teh eeeevillllll Fox News livestream.

Also, there's an Irish bookmaking site laying odds on the first cliche Obama uses (h/t Maet)

A sample:
8/1 We have more work to do
10/1 Health Care reform
10/1 As I stand here today
12/1 Fundamental belief
12/1 God Bless America
12/1 Crossroads of history
12/1 Defining moment
12/1 Make Washington work

Plus some longshots:
80/1 Overcome the adversity
80/1 Bloated federal government
100/1 Diversity of my heritage
100/1 Yes, we might
250/1 Life is like a box of chocolates

Standard reminder: Your comments do not automatically display. So don't ask "Why aren't my comments displaying?" They don't display.

They're not posted comments a la chat room. Instead they go to queue, which the producers (cobloggers) read, and we post them, by hand, if we think they make a good point.

Liveblog thingy below the fold. more...

Posted by: andy at 04:50 PM | Comments (743)
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"I prefer people with personality and swagger as opposed to people that did really well in college and can now spout boring facts on command."

From the Meghan McCain's upcoming book, "The Wisdom of Lightning: A Polyesthetic Exploration of the Origins of Life."

Posted by: Ace at 03:54 PM | Comments (179)
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Tonight, President Obama delivers what we all hope will be his last State of the Union address. The usual pack of bloggers and cob-loggers will live-blog the event, but until then, I have a...um...thought exercise for all of you.

Fill in the blank: "I'd rather watch __________________ than the State of the Union."

Some suggestions from the cob-loggers to get you started:

"Gators Eating Adorable Pets In Front Of The Children Who Love Them"

"a venereal chancre ripen and burst"

"Two Congressmen, One Cup"

"Real Housewives of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue"

Have at it, morons!

Posted by: Slublog at 02:57 PM | Comments (903)
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